“You shouldn’t have been discharged.”
“I don’t want to be this feeble,” she grumbled, pulling away as they crossed the threshold. The loss of his touch made her feel weak and sorry for herself. “Even that time in Peru I managed to keep going. I’ll get better. I have to.” She sank down on the velvet-upholstered bench in the foyer and cupped her swimming head in her hands.
“When were you sick in Peru? That time half the conference came down with food poisoning? You didn’t get it.”
“I did! But someone had to take charge, extend the arrangements with the hotel and rebook the flights. I didn’t hear you volunteering.”
He grew an inch in height and his mouth opened, but she waved a hand against whatever scathing response he was on the verge of making.
“It was my job. I’m not complaining, just saying that’s the most wretched and useless I’ve ever felt, but this is worse. I hate being like this.”
“You should have told me. This time and then.”
“It was my job,” she repeated, ignoring his admonition in favor of reminding him her work ethic had been rock solid. She looked up at him and he met her gaze with an inscrutable frown and a tic in his cheek.
“I expect you to tell me what your needs are, Sirena. I’m not a mind reader. We’ll go to your room now so you can rest. Can you manage these stairs with me or shall I have a room prepared down here?”
“Upstairs is fine, but Lucy will need a feed before I lie down.” She deliberately kept her gaze on the baby and not on these beloved surroundings. Silly, naive fool that she was, she used to host fantasies about one day being mistress here. She loved everything about its eclectic style.
The lounge where she moved to nurse was one of her favorite rooms, with its Mediterranean colors, contemporary furniture and view to the English garden. Raoul had a lot of worldly influences in his life, from his Spanish mother’s ancestry of warmth and sensuality to his father’s Swiss precision. He had been educated in America, so he brought those modern, pop-culture elements into his world with contemporary art and futuristic electronics. All of his homes were classy, comfortable and convenient.
And all contained the one ingredient to which she was drawn inexorably: him.
He stood in profile to her, lean and pantherish, thumb sweeping across the screen of his mobile as he dealt with all the things she used to do for him. Her heart panged. She had loved working for him, loved the job that challenged her. Transcribing had put her through business school and kept her fed these last months, so she couldn’t knock it, but it didn’t take her off her steno chair, let alone around the world.
“Are you going in to the office this afternoon?” she asked, of two minds whether she wanted him to leave. Being on guard against him drained her, but another secret part of her drank up his nearness like a cactus in a rare rain.
“They’re asking the same. Things are in disarray. When you delivered, I had only starting to put things in place for an absence I thought would happen next month.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the habitual words leave her lips and thinking, Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault!
“A warning that premature delivery was a possibility would have been helpful.”
The supercilious remark got her back up. “I didn’t need the extra stress of you hanging over me telling me what to do,” she said with acerbity. “I followed doctor’s orders and tried to go to term, which is all I could do. If you’re inconvenienced by the early birth, well, welcome to parenthood. I believe we’re both in for adjustments.”
“A little communication goes a long way, is what I’m saying. Keeping things to yourself is a theme that keeps getting you into trouble.” His deceptively silky tone rang with danger.
“Oh, and you gave me ample opportunity to communicate after informing me through the arrest charges that you knew money had gone missing?”
“Before that,” he snapped. His jaw was like iron, his gray eyes metallic and locked down, but he did darken a shade with something that might have been culpability. “You could have told me you were having financial troubles and we could have worked something out. Stealing from me was unacceptable.”
“I agree. That’s why I only borrowed.”
“So you’ve said,” he ground through his teeth. “But if you—”
Lucy made a little sputter. Sirena quickly sat her up, glancing at Raoul to finish his sentence, but he had stopped speaking to stare openly at her nude breast. She’d come to the demoralizing realization that there was no dignity in childbirth and there wasn’t much more afterward. You needed two hands on a newborn, leaving none for tucking yourself back into a bra that had more jibs and sails than a yacht.
“You burp her,” she ordered out of self-conscious embarrassment, screening herself with an elbow and quickly covering up once he’d taken the baby. It was an awkward moment on the heels of a deeper fight that promised her stay here would be a dark corner of hell.
When he helped her up the stairs a few minutes later, draped a coverlet over her and set a baby monitor on the nightstand, tears nearly overwhelmed her. A confusion of gratitude and relief with a hefty dose of frustration and fear of the unknown filled her. This wasn’t the way she’d expected her life would turn out and she didn’t know which way it would bend next. She couldn’t trust Raoul, but she had to, at least for an hour while her body recovered enough to take him on next round.
Struggling to keep her heavy eyelids open, she said, “I didn’t look to see which room you’re putting her in. I won’t know where to go if I hear her.”
With a sardonic quirk of his mouth, he said, “The monitor is so I can hear you. I have a cot in my office for Lucy.”
She really did want to cry then. He was the capable one and she would never measure up. She closed her eyes against the sting and clamped her trembling lips together, praying he couldn’t tell how vulnerable she was.
Sirena fell asleep like a blanket had been dropped over her.
Raoul frowned, wanting to set a hand alongside her face to check for temperature, but he didn’t want to disturb her. She needed the rest too badly.
Yet she insisted on wearing herself out by fighting him at every turn. What would she be like full strength? He kept seeing glimpses of the old Sirena in her sharp wit, but the hostility and challenges were new and disconcerting. How much of her real personality had she repressed while she had worked for him because he was the boss and she the employee?
And because she had wanted to lull him into not missing stolen money?
He scowled. That act didn’t fit with the woman who had pushed herself to work when she was sick. Or pushed herself through a difficult pregnancy to give the best start in life to a baby whose birth could have killed her.
The sight of Sirena unconscious and white, tubes and wires keeping her alive, would never leave him. For that act alone, he owed her consideration. A chance to recover, at least.
Her obvious love for their daughter played on him too. Her worry after each medical checkup. The way she looked to him for his interpretation and reassurance. A cynical part of him warned against being taken in again, but her connection to their baby was too real to be manufactured.
Then there was the sexual attraction that was as bad as ever, despite how pale and weak she was. He hadn’t been able to stop himself ogling her naked breast. Her ass was gorgeously round and begging to be fondled. Every time he got near enough to catch her scent, he wanted to pull her close and kiss the hell out of her plump, smart mouth.
He rubbed his face, more preoccupied than ever by a woman he never should have touched. Work was what he needed. Studying had been his escape from the struggle to understand his father’s suicide. From age twenty, once his stepfather’s perfidy came to light, he’d been immersed in recovering their finances. The urgency of that task had been a type of salvation from emotional angst as well.
Thankfully, despite having to drop out of university, he’d had a basic version of a software program more than halfway through development. Taking it to completion and selling it had staved off his sense of failure over not realizing what his stepfather had been doing. Piling up dollars and assets like points on a screen ever since had become enormously satisfying. It always reassured him to know he was creating not just a financial umbrella, but a giant, inflated mattress of protection for his family.
A family that now included a helpless infant. That gave him more motivation than ever.
And that baby’s mother?
He took his seat at his desk and angled the baby monitor, staring hard at it until he heard her whispery breath, wondering where Sirena would fit into his life long-term.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN SOME WAYS, living with Raoul was too easy. The subliminal communication they had developed working together laid the groundwork. She knew his moods, picked up the small cues that meant his call would be a long one and already knew his boundaries when it came to making a space for her within his. Plus, he was such a work hound she was able to sneak away to quiet corners until he took a breather and came looking for his daughter.
But being out of his sight didn’t mean he was out of her mind. Why, oh, why did she have to track him with internal radar, her entire being called by his dynamic presence? No matter how many times she told herself to get over him, knowing how close he was made her mind trail back to a rainy afternoon’s passionate coming together. So stupid! Daydreams like that made her a pushover for what had been an impersonal coupling on his part. It’s what had gotten her into this mess.